Hello Vog

Left a message a couple of weeks ago about problems with messenger service etc. Was losing the will to live trying to sort it out. Thanks for the info and advice. Pooter is now running excellently. Thanks again. We still have connection problems but we do live in a village with no chance of broadband in forseeable future so have to live with that. Spybot is invaluable. Can't believe what it showed up when we first ran it. Thanks again. No doubt I'll be back for more in the future.

Thanks again. Your advice really helped. The connection problems are on his PC and not my laptop. BT have checked the phone line coz we got zapped by lightning in August which killed my laptop. Ironically I was trying to turn it off at the time. Next time I'll just pull everything out and sort it out afterwards. Had to get new modem - not easy from Dell!!!! Followed one of links on the message board and eventually got one gratis. I don't get disconnected at all when I'm online but PC get's disconnected frequently. I've made a note of laptop settings and compared them with PC settings and both are maximised and set to recommended etc. Living miles from nowhere doesn't help. I've been thru start menu etc and disabled everything he doesn't need so hopefully things should now be better. PC has a shorter connection to phone point than laptop so should have less problems or am I being a bit naive. Laptop goes thru two extensions???Sue

You might want to start a new thread about "connection problems" or similar as this is really not my subject, plus a lot of members may well ignore a post directed specifically at me.

DJohn - Good evening my friend. Yes it is seriously fast but I'm thinking of going back to 1 Mb/s because it really does not speed up general surfing. However you (well I) can download a 20 meg file in the time taken to boil a cupful of water.

Just a note to say the satellite box is also connected to the phone line and also appears to have gone down the river without a paddle as well following the lightning. Although the BT man said everything was fine with the line. I am just glad I wasn't touching anything electrical at the time!

I'll post a new message about connection problems. I just wanted to say thanks for all your previous help and directions. Again I expect I will be back in the future. Time to have a pint? Only got Old Hooky from the brewery unfortunately. Will that do?